Town Gets Sassy About Serie A

Little Sassuolo—Population 41,000—Finds Itself on the Brink of Something Big

ENLARGE

Sassuolo teammates mob Tommaso Bianchi after he scored during his side's victory over Spezia at the Modena stadium on Feb. 16.
Getty Images

By

Julian Bonte-Friedheim And

Robert Bonte-Friedheim

May 13, 2013 4:13 p.m. ET

SASSUOLO, Italy—The town of Sassuolo, best known for its ceramic tiles, is a place in the Emilia-Romagna region so small that the professional soccer team here can't even use its own stadium. Players drive to neighboring Modena for home games, where the average attendance of 4,000 barely fills a corner of Modena's 20,000-seat arena.

But in this unlikely corner of Italy, the team is preparing for the big time. Sassuolo (population 41,000) is one point clear at the top of the table in the second tier of Italian soccer. With one game to go, the club only needs to win or draw its last match to get promoted to Serie A next season.

Juventus-Sassuolo, anyone? How about Sassuolo-AC Milan?

The club isn't in this position by accident. Sassuolo has played flowing, attacking soccer all season—something that isn't always guaranteed in Italy, where defense has been elevated to high art. With 77 goals in 41 matches, Sassuolo's goal-scoring pace is just ahead of the Serie A leader's—Juventus has 69 goals from 37 games.

"I'd rather lose playing better than the other team, than win playing worse," said manager Eusebio di Francesco. "We seek to outplay them with aggressive movement, that's why I like the 4-3-3 formation."

Relying less on catenaccio, the name for the stifling brand of defense played in Italy, than sides in the top tier, Serie B teams often appeal to the purists because of their more open, less predictable games. "Serie B is tough, anybody can beat anybody," di Francesco said.

Reminders of Sassuolo's size come with every home game. Its crucial recent match against then second-place Hellas Verona drew only 3,000 Sassuolo fans—most of them appeared to be families, in contrast to the vocal, mostly male traveling support from Verona. And the town, historically reliant on industry and crisscrossed by pockmarked streets, isn't especially affluent either.

So how did Sassuolo edge out its much bigger rivals?

Giorgio Squinzi, CEO of Sassuolo's main sponsor Mapei SpA, took over the team in 2002, when it was playing in Italy's fourth tier. Mapei, a family-owned adhesives group, had sponsored one of the world's leading cycling teams for decades and had historical ties to Sassuolo's tile-makers.

Squinzi appointed Carlo Rossi as club president, and told him to start winning. "He said 'I will give more money, but you have to win'," remembers Enzo Bellei—who used to coach Sassuolo's youth teams—speaking in the cafe across from the clubhouse.

ENLARGE

The world moves at an easy pace in Sassuolo's town center.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Rossi assembled a roster of rising talent and experienced older players, with more than a few borrowed on loan from richer clubs.

Only three players have been with the club since the fourth-tier days: Goalkeeper Alberto Pomini, defender Gaetano Masucci and midterfielder Francesco Magnanelli. To these, Rossi added Ghanaian striker Richmond Boakye, on loan from Juventus and youngster Domenico Berardi, who came up from Sassuolo's youth program and has played for the Under-19 national team.

And, intentionally or not, Sassuolo's timing was perfect. The club started its spending spree just as rivals across Italy were cutting back, partly due to the 2006 Calciopoli match-fixing scandal and partly due to Italy's economic crisis. Within two years Sassuolo rose to the third division. In 2007 it hired a young coach with some pedigree: Massimiliano Allegri, who today sits on the sidelines for AC Milan. Allegri promptly earned Sassuolo promotion to Italy's second division for the first time in its history.

But Serie B soccer can be a topsy-turvy affair. Two years ago, Sassuolo was saved from sliding back into third division on the season's last day. Both in 2010 and last year, the team had a chance to get promoted to Serie A but was knocked out at the playoff stage, where the teams that finish third through sixth face off for a promotion spot—the top two go up automatically.

Those losses so upset Squinzi that he tried to sell the club. When that didn't work he cut the budget by 25%, unloading last year's star striker. "The philosophy behind spending is one of spending little," Rossi, the club president, said.

Now, as it prepares for life in Serie A, the question facing the team is how to stay there, which will certainly require a change in that philosophy. Sporting director Nereo Bonato said that Sassuolo will try to keep young stars Boakye and Berardi, while borrowing other quality players from larger teams. The club doesn't have the money for a new stadium, so it will continue to commute to Modena. A bus service for fans is being discussed.

For their part, Sassuolo's supporters are enthralled by the chance of just making it to Serie A. Said Franco Rognoni, a 67-year-old lifelong fan in downtown Sassuolo: "It would be out of this world."

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